900,000 Fisher-Price Toys with Lead Paint Hazard Recall

Taiwan Parenting
1

Alot of different toys being recalled in the U.S. Not sure if this effects Taiwan or not but I think it’s something to look into.

Link below show pictures of recalled lead paint toys.
service.mattel.com/us/recall/39054_IVR.asp?prod=
This list includes the lead paint recall plus other toys with different problems.
service.mattel.com/us/recall.asp

Fisher-Price Recalls Licensed Character Toys Due To Lead Poisoning Hazard
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with the firm named below, today announced a voluntary recall of the following consumer products. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed. (To access color photos of the following recalled products, see CPSC’s Web site at www.cpsc.gov.)

Name of Products: Sesame Street, Dora the Explorer, and other children’s toys
Units: About 967,000
Importer: Fisher-Price Inc., of East Aurora, N.Y.
Hazard: Surface paints on the toys could contain excessive levels of lead. Lead is toxic if ingested by young children and can cause adverse health effects.
Incidents/Injuries: None reported.
Description: The recalled involves various figures and toys that were manufactured between April 19, 2007 and July 6, 2007 and were sold alone or as part of sets. The model names and product numbers for the recalled toys, which are all marked with “Fisher-Price,” are listed below. The toys also have a date code between 109-7LF and 187-7LF marked on the product.
Sold at: Retail stores nationwide from May 2007 through August 2007 for between $5 and $40.
Manufactured in: China
Remedy: Consumers should immediately take the recalled toys away from children and contact Fisher-Price. Consumers will need to return the product and will receive a voucher for a replacement toy of the consumer’s choice (up to the value of the returned product).
Customer Contact: For additional information visit the firm’s Web site at www.service.mattel.com or contact Fisher-Price at (800) 916-4498.
Product List:
33662 ELMO LIGHT UP MUSICAL PAL 33663 ERNIE LIGHT UP MUSICAL PAL
33664 BIG BIRD LIGHT UP MUSICAL PAL 34658 ELMO STACKING RINGS
39038 ELMO TUB SUB 39054 SESAME STREET SHAPE SORTER
87946 ELMO KEYBOARD 90267 ERNIE SPLASHIN’ FUN TRIKE
90609 ELMO COLLECTIBLE 90611 COOKIE COLLECTIBLE,
90612 ZOE COLLECTIBLE 90613 ERNIE COLLECTIBLE
90614 BIG BIRD COLLECTIBLE 90745 CONSTRUCTION PLAYSET
93068 ELMO BOOM BOX 93107 ACTION FIRE ENGINE
93307 PRESS N GO ELMO 93308 REV & GO COOKIE MONSTER
93492 COOKIE SAXOPHONE 93493 ELMO’S GUITAR
93615 SPLASH TUB PUZZLE 93780 MUSIC AND LIGHTS PHONE
B7554 COUNT TO BEAT ELMO B7888 SHAKE, GIGGLE & ROLL
B7987 ELMO IN THE GIGGLE BOX B7989 SILLY PARTS TALKING ELMO
B9620 DORA’S TALKING HOUSE
C6908 DORA, BACKPACK, PERRITO FIGURE PACK
C6909 DIEGO FIGURE PACK C6910 SWIPER FIGURE PACK
C6911 BOOTS, TICO FIGURE PACK G3825 DORA TALKING VAMONOS VAN
G5112 SING WITH ELMO’S GREATEST HITS G9717 GIGGLE DOODLER
H2943 GROW WITH ME ELMO SPRINKLER H3343 COUSIN DAISY
H3344 BIRTHDAY DORA H5569 ELMO & PALS (ELMO, COOKIE, ERNIE)
H5570 ELMO & PALS (ELMO, ZOE, BIGBIRD) H4187 DORA FIGURES IN TUBE,
H4628 WATER FUN TOTE H8236 DORA 3 PACK FIGURES IN TUBE,
H8237 BLUE 3 PACK FIGURES IN TUBE H8238 SPONGE BOB 3 PACK FIGURES IN TUBE
H9124 CHEF DORA H9125 BEDTIME DORA
H9186 GIGGLE GRABBER ERNIE H9188 GIGGLE GRABBER OSCAR THE GROUCH
J0338 DIEGO TALKING FIELD JOURNAL J0343 GO DIEGO GO ANTARCTIC RESCUE
J0344 GO DIEGO GO DEEP SEA RESCUE J0345 GO DIEGO GO MOUNTAIN RESCUE
J0346 GO DIEGO GO TALKING RESCUE 4 X 4 J5935 GIGGLE GRABBER SOCCER ELMO
J5936 GIGGLE GRABBER CHEF COOKIE MONSTER
J6537 SESAME STREET GIGGLE TOOLBELT J6762 QUEEN MAMI
J6763 ROYAL BOOTS AND TICO J6765 PRINCE DIEGO
J7983 SESAME STREET TUB POTS & PANS J9518 SESAME STREET GIGGLE DRILL
J9692 DORA’S TALKING PONY PLACE K0617 TWINS NURSERY
K3414 DIEGO - TALKING GADGET BELT K3571 GO DIEGO GO MOBILE RESCUE UNIT
K3580 FAIRYTALE ADVENTURE DORA K4139 GO DIEGO GO DINOSAUR RESCUE
K4140 TOUCAN MOTORCYCLE RESCUE L0305 DORA FIGURE
L3194 SURPRISE INSIDE DIEGO EGGS L3215 SESAME STREET ELMO JACK-IN-THE-BOX
L3488 SESAME STREET BIRTHDAY FIGURE PACK
L3507 SESAME STREET - SUPER BOOM BOX
L5202 BIRTHDAY DORA L5813 DIEGO TUB TRIKE
L8905 PABLO & PALS M0351 DORA FIGURES DORA & KITTY
M0352 DORA FIGURES DIEGO & BEAR M0524 GO DIEGO GO TALKING GADGET
M0527 SESAME STREET GIGGLE DOODLER M0732 DORA’S TALKING HOUSE
M2051 LETS GO RESCUE CENTER M2052 FAIRYTALE CASTLE

2

Add this recall to the Thomas the Train lead paint toys and what’s left?

At this point, would you let your baby play with any painted toy from China? Especially if it’s not a name brand?

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3275264

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[quote=“fishy76”]Add this recall to the Thomas the Train lead paint toys and what’s left?

At this point, would you let your baby play with any painted toy from China? Especially if it’s not a name brand?

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3275264[/quote]

Right! It’s one thing knowing the stuff comes from China and being worried about that but now we can’t even trust big manufacturers to do quality control tests on their products…not to mention the government agencies to do their checks. Who the hell is left to trust!?
And it’s not only the lead paint! Go through the list of toys on that 2nd link-- service.mattel.com/us/recall.asp and it will tell you why those are being recalled.

Some of them don’t even take a brain to figure out why they are being recalled.
For example there is this Bat Mobile car that was recalled. Now how in the hell does something like this get designed for kids to play with!? :loco: This is obviousely the fault of the designers of the company.
Don’t these guys have some kind of a review board to pass these designs before putting them into mass production?
Bat Mobile eye poking toy (14 injury reports) :bravo:

And this chair specially desiged with the gap between the chair back and table to be perfect for a kid to get their neck wedged between them.(4 incident reports)
I think I’ll write Mattel and offer to do design fault tests. Should be good money in it :sunglasses: .

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[quote=“ab12ra12”]
Right! It’s one thing knowing the stuff comes from China and being worried about that but now we can’t even trust big manufacturers to do quality control tests on their products…not to mention the government agencies to do their checks. Who the hell is left to trust!?[/quote]The big importers have for years now left the whole QC issue to their vendors. They consider it too expensive to do quality inspections themselves and leave it to suppliers to certify the goods themselves. They require the suppliers name as co-insured on expensive product liability policies. They sign contracts with them specifying huge penalties in case they are not honest about their products being to spec. They have long lists of substances which may not be used in production of their goods, and long lists of workplace practices which are forbidden in order to appear to be diligent in these things and not supporting things like environmental degradation, child labor, etc. With all these in place the importers then feel they have sufficient legal protection and are able to pass any and all liability issues onto their suppliers if and when problems arise. I think they know full well that the Chinese scoff at the very idea of self-certification and see it as an open invitation to cheat. I think they just look at the price of the rubbish they are buying and the probability that their lawyers will be able to deflect all lawsuits to the suppliers. In the long run it’s just cheaper to hire a small army of good lawyers than a large army of experienced QC staff and then go to battle with their suppliers every single day to stop them shipping poisonous garbage.

5

Kids shouldn’t have toys. They should be learning valuable skills like running, reading, making coffee, swimming.

Maybe they should countries should implement laws like RoHS for all toys (ie ban and fines for hazardous substances like lead).

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Assuming that the batmobile and chair/table set shown here are Mattel products, I’d assume the designs came from Mattel, not from the maker. If Mattel tells them to make something pointy, they’ll make it pointy.

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don’t forget though, that despite the loud protestations from the Chinese that they have good standards, the overwhelming urge among manufacturers is to reduce prices. lead paints are cheaper than similar intensity and saturation alternatives, and thus the temptation to replace the contracted paint with the cheap paint (fraudulently) is high, so it will be done. standards are nothing wthout the resources and systems in place to enfoprece them. I do not believe that it is the importers sole responsibility to check all batches of the products, but the manufacturers responsibility A) to ensure that their products meet the standards required and B) to fulfil the contracted specifications. I would not put it past them to make some initial samples of high standard materials and then to switch to low quality and downright dangerous substitutions once the testing and initial contract-seeking stage is over.

most businesses have no morals, and pay only the most minimal attention to standards if they can posibly avoid it. morals must be forced on them by consumer protection groups, which are basically non-existent or toothless figureheads and place markers in China.

which person of any kind of integrity would replace lead free paint with leaded paint on kid’s toys, toys that spend half of their time being sucked and chewed on by babies, at the very time that the babies’ brains are A) most vulnerable to lead ingestion as they have not fully developed their protective coverings, and B) most vulnerable to the effeccts of lead as they are growing the fastest? Scum.

8

US companies are coming to China and always asking for lower prices in order to raise profit margins. Is it any real wonder that, at some point, shortcuts will be taken?

People complain also about jobs going to China. Well, if Nike is selling shoes for 200 USD, and the factory worker is making cents on the dollar, the mfr. is being squeezed by Nike, where do you think the money is going?

If toy prices (and does anyone have data on this) are coming down even after factoring in economies of scale and cheaper labor, where is the squeeze going to be?

Not to deflect blame, but rather the entire chain up to the top ie Mattel is to blame. The buck doesn’t stop at the Chinese mfr.

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[quote=“Jack Burton”]If toy prices (and does anyone have data on this) are coming down even after factoring in economies of scale and cheaper labor, where is the squeeze going to be?

Not to deflect blame, but rather the entire chain up to the top ie Mattel is to blame. The buck doesn’t stop at the Chinese mfr.[/quote]
The buyers are equally culpable. The only difference is that they have laid out a paper trail which places the responsibility for compliance to standards on the manufacturer. A buyer like Fischer-Price is not so naive as to think the vendors weren’t going to cut corners in order to stay profitable.

10

Right now on CNN:

[quote]NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) – As many more U.S. companies outsource their production base to China, their poor oversight there is exposing American consumers to greater safety risks, according to some industry experts.

No doubt, the recent spate of product recalls - melamine-tainted pet food, toothpaste laced with anti-freeze and now Mattel-branded toys made with lead paint - all were made in Southern China’s low-cost manufacturing hub that’s notorious for its lax regulations.

Nevertheless, industry experts say U.S. importers that do business with these factories are more to blame than even their Chinese suppliers for allowing those unsafe products to enter the U.S. marketplace.

“U.S. law is pretty clear. The importer is responsible for quality and safety of good imported into the country,” said Erin Ennis, vice president with the U.S.-China Business Council. “But the Chinese can absolutely do more to prevent safety issues.”

Chris Byrne, an independent toy industry consultant, agreed. He said Mattel’s recall on Wednesday of 1.5 million Chinese made toys isn’t necessarily a “geographic issue.”

While companies could decide to shift some of the production out of China into Malaysia, Indonesia or Vietnam, it doesn’t guarantee that they won’t face the same issues in these countries whose infrastructure is less developed than in China.

U.S. companies sourcing from China “have to be more responsible for product safety themselves,” he said. “Consumers will now insist on this.”

Other analysts also stressed that the onus should be on U.S. companies to introduce much more rigorous testing standards in China.

“American companies have to put their own people on the ground [in China],” said Sean McGowan, analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities.

“After this latest episode, I think the toy industry will have to implement a level of oversight that’s never been seen before,” he said.[/quote]

money.cnn.com/2007/08/02/news/co … tm?cnn=yes

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Yes, these are on the Mattel recall site.

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The over-reaction from the general public, as shown in the media, is insane. From the woman in Beijing who said she didn’t care because “her children only play with toys, they don’t put them in their mouth.”
!
Pan to the dirty North Americano sucker of cheap toys; who claim they will only buy toys of pedigree plumage, aka “Made In The USa”.

Good Luck!

This whole issue is obviously part of a low scale war of intensity, propaganda style. It’s been long known that Taiwanese-made toys were cheap, and produced with a whole menu of shortcuts. Cut to the MotherLand. Magnify that x1000, add in a massive consumer base unwilling to learn the basic tenets of common sense, and it’s pretty much a vaccum whereby the producers can pretty well operate as they see fit. After all there’s only so much cash to go around after the pigs have been fed.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6929005.stm

Too much swine at the trough.